Chapter 18 #2
“Oh,” I say, surprised. That’s at least a forty-five-minute drive on a Friday night. “We should have met somewhere in the middle.”
He shakes his head. “Nah, I’ve heard good things about this place,” he says. “And I don’t mind the drive to get to know you a little better.”
Okay, that was cute. Well done, Chris. Even more endearing, the tips of his ears have turned a light shade of pink.
“Well, I hope I can make it worth your while,” I say, and then give him a sheepish grin because that’s not what I wanted to say. “Sorry, that came out wrong. I meant, I hope it’ll be worth the drive.”
He laughs, and the pink color on his ears darkens. “I think it will be.”
Points to Chris for letting that go. Luke would have run away with it.
Nope. Not thinking about Luke.
“So, what do you do for work?” I ask, getting us back on track.
The conversation picks up after that. Chris is a physical therapist in an orthopedic clinic, likes to play basketball with friends in his spare time, and is learning to 3D print.
After we order—I get the enchiladas, which is safe first-date food—I tell him a little about my work, downplaying it so he doesn’t ask too many questions.
It’s an easy date so far. Possibly one of my better ones in a while, if you don’t include dinner with Luke—which I don’t. But Chris seems . . . nice. He’s easy to talk to, nice to look at, and so far, no red flags.
If this keeps up, I could see us going out again. And yet . . . that idea doesn’t excite me like it should.
What’s wrong with me?
My watch buzzes twice on my wrist, and I see messages from both Tessa and Luke pop up.
Tessa: This might be a problem
Jerkwad: We have a problem
Tessa sends me a link next, but I can’t open it on my watch.
Feeling suddenly worried, I grab my phone out of my purse just as a call comes in, the name “Jerkwad” big and bold across the screen.
“Everything okay?” Chris asks, a concerned look on his face.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m just getting a call from work that I need to take. Do you mind?”
“Of course not,” he says.
I scoot out of the booth, a sinking feeling in my stomach as I look for a place to take the call. Seeing the sign for restrooms, I head there.
What could have happened that would warrant texts from both Tessa and Luke?
“Hello,” I answer once I’m inside the single-stall bathroom, painted bright red with a border of flowers around the upper part of the wall.
“We’ve got a problem,” Luke says.
“Tessa just sent me a link to something, but I haven’t seen it,” I say. “What’s going on?”
“Where are you?” he asks.
“I’m . . . on a date,” I say. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
“A date?” he asks. “Is it another MLMer? Do you need me to save you?”
“No.” I shake my head. “It’s been fine. Why are you calling?”
“Just fine?” he asks.
“Luke,” I say, feeling irritated.
“Right, sorry,” he says. “So, your client has gone off the rails.”
“What?” I put him on speakerphone so I can pull up the link Tessa sent me and pray he’s overexaggerating.
I click on it, and it sends me to Bailey’s Instagram. The top post is a picture of one of those grumpy-looking cats with the caption: This is Bella. The new love of my life.
I don’t even need to look at the comments to know what fans are saying right now. But I look anyway.
That’s right, girl! Cats are so much better than men.
This is such a dig at River. Wow.
Dogs are better than cats. This is such a pathetic move.
I stop reading, scrolling down the page with my thumb. There are probably hundreds of comments already.
“Crap,” I say, the word echoing in the bathroom.
“Yes. Crap. But I could think of other more appropriate words,” Luke says through the speaker. “What’s she thinking with this? She’s supposed to clear her posts with the studio.”
“I don’t know,” I say.
What I do know is that this is bad. We were clearly told in the meeting with the studio that if Bailey or River steps out of line, we could all lose our jobs.
My phone beeps, and I see Bailey’s name. “She’s calling me. I’ll call you back.”
I hang up on Luke and answer Bailey’s call.
“Hi, Bailey,” I say, impressed at how calm I sound under the circumstances.
“Did you see it?” she asks, panic in her voice.
“I did,” I tell her.
“I didn’t mean it to sound like that. It’s a shelter I volunteer with. I’m contractually obligated to post if I adopt, and I never planned to, but I saw this cat today, and I’ve been feeling lonely with everything and . . .” She trails off. I know what happens next anyway.
I pull up the post again, and under her caption just above the picture, she’s tagged a well-known animal adoption center.
That bodes well for our jobs. She’s allowed to post contractual things without clearing it. But it doesn’t mean Victoria won’t also see the unintentional dig and be angry about it anyway.
“Okay, take a breath,” I say for both of us.
“What do I do?” she asks. “I should edit it, right? I’ll just change the caption.”
“No,” I say, the single word coming out louder than I mean it to. “Sorry. Just don’t touch it. People have already taken screenshots. They’ll know you changed it.”
“Right,” she says, her voice shaky. “Tell me what to do.”
“I’ll handle it,” I tell her. “Don’t post anything else, okay? I’ll call you back.”
We hang up, and I walk out to the dining room, where my date—the person whose name I’ve forgotten once again—sits at the table, steaming plates of food in front of him and in front of my vacant seat.
He smiles when I approach, but then his face drops.
“You okay?” he asks.
“I’m so sorry. I have a huge work emergency I have to take care of,” I say, holding up my phone as proof, except that the screen is blank, and it would be hard to explain.
He looks away and then back at me. “This isn’t one of those fake work emergencies to get out of a date, is it?” His lips are curved upward, but there’s something hollow underneath the smile.
“No,” I say, shaking my head emphatically. “I promise. I didn’t explain that my job in PR is mostly working with celebrities. It’s . . . an around-the-clock kind of thing, and one of them just did something stupid that I need to fix. I swear this isn’t an excuse.”
He nods, but I can tell he still doesn’t fully believe me.
“Can we do this again?” I ask. “Next week?”
This seems to assuage him, because he nods. “I can do next Tuesday.”
“Perfect,” I say, grabbing my purse and throwing some money on the table. “It’s a date.”
“What about your food?” he asks, holding out a hand toward the perfect-looking enchiladas. My stomach rumbles.
“Take it to go,” I tell him, and then wave goodbye.
Twenty-five minutes later, I’m standing outside the door of a newer-looking apartment building on the other side of town from mine.
“Hey, Arch,” Luke says when he opens the door and sees me standing there.
After I left the restaurant, I called him back and explained Bailey’s side, and we decided it would be best to meet up to figure out what to do next.
Since Sam is having her work friends over at our apartment and I really didn’t want to introduce him to all that, Luke invited me to his place.
I was too worried about the post to really think it through, but now that I’m here, I feel a little weird about it. I don’t know why; Luke’s been to my place a couple of times now. It’s not that strange that we would end up here at some point.
“Come in,” he says, opening the door wider for me.
“Thanks,” I say as I walk inside.
He’s wearing light jeans and a white T-shirt, and his feet are bare.
I get a waft of his signature spicy scent as I walk by him and into his modern-looking space.
It’s small and, like mine, sparsely decorated.
Maybe that’s a sign someone is in our line of work: no time to decorate. Or maybe this is just Luke’s aesthetic.
“Nice place,” I say, looking around, taking it in.
There’s a galley kitchen to my right with an opening toward the living room with a brown leather sofa facing a large-screen TV.
On the side table is a framed picture of him and two women—I’m guessing his mom and sister—and on the coffee table is a puzzle in progress.
The frame put together, the other pieces scattered around.
“It’s . . . clean,” I say, thinking out loud.
He laughs. “Did you expect a disaster?”
“Kind of,” I say, chuckling. “I remember how you used to keep your desk.”
“Ah.” He nods, understanding dawning. “I’m still terrible at keeping my desk clean. But at home, I like to keep things mostly tidy. Don’t look in my closet, though. You’ll be horrified.”
“Note taken,” I say. I have zero plans to look at Luke Wilder’s closet.
I won’t admit to him that the only reason mine is clean is because I made sure it was picked up before he came over that first time. Otherwise, he might also be horrified.
“Have a seat,” he says, a hand out toward the couch. “Do you want a drink?”
“No, thanks,” I tell him, taking a spot on the plush sofa and feeling slightly envious that I didn’t have to jump over the back or squeeze around the side to get to it.
He takes a seat next to me, angling himself toward me, tucking one leg under the other.
“So, what should we do about the post?” he asks.
I lean my head back against the soft cushion. I’m tired and hungry, and I know we have to deal with this as fast as possible, but I kind of don’t want to right now. I’m having a hard time even thinking straight.
“I have no idea,” I finally say.
My stomach makes a grumbling noise, and Luke hears it. “Eat something that didn’t agree with you?”
“No,” I say, defensive. “I didn’t eat at all. I left the restaurant just as the food came.” I wish I had time to take the enchiladas with me or at least hit a drive-thru on the way here, but I was in panic mode.
“Right,” he says. “On your date.”
“Yep,” I say. My stomach makes a noise again, and Luke gets up from the couch.
“I’ll make you something,” he says.
“No, don’t worry about it,” I tell him, but he’s already heading toward the kitchen.
“I need your full brain, Archie,” he says. “And you won’t be able to think if you’re hungry.”